" A Journal of Orthodox Opinion"

The Fundamental Difference Between the "East" and
"West"

EDITOR’S NOTE: What follows is a heavily excerpted and slightly edited
transcript of three lectures given by the great Orthodox scholar John S.
Romanides in 1981 at Holy Cross Seminary in the Patriarch Athenagoras Memorial
Lecture series.

This article deals with the fundamental difference between Orthodoxy and
Western Christianity, mainly Roman Catholicism. Readers will be surprised to
learn that the division between "East" and "West" was actually more of a
political division, caused by the ambitions of the Franks and other Germanic
tribes, than a "Theological" question.

Professor John Romanides of the University of Thessalonike challenges the
common views regarding the causes for the Schism of the Church in the "Roman
world," and offers his own provocative interpretation of the historical
background of this tragedy in the history of the Christian Church.

Far from seeing basic differences in the "Roman world," which led to
alienation between the East and West, Romanides argues for the existence of
"national, cultural and even linguistic unity between East (Byzantine) and West
Romans"; that is, until the intrusion and takeover of the West Romans (the Roman
Catholics) by the Franks (German tribes).

The Christian Activist extends its thanks to Holy Cross Press for permission
to reprint these lectures, which they first published in 1981.

European and American histories treat the alienation between Eastern and
Western Christian Churches as though it were inevitable, because of an alleged
separation of the Roman Empire itself into "East" and "West," because of alleged
linguistic and cultural differences, and because of an alleged difference
between the legal West and the speculative East.1 Evidence strongly suggests
that such attempts to explain the separation between East and West are
conditioned by prejudices inherited from the cultural tradition of the Franks,
and from the centuries-old propaganda of the Frankish (Germanic dominated)
Papacy.

The evidence points clearly to the national, cultural, and even linguistic
unity between East and West Romans which survived to the time when the Roman
popes were replaced by Franks. Had the Franks not taken over the Papacy, it is
very probable that the local synod of the Church of Rome (with the pope as
president), elected according to the 769 election decree approved by the Eighth
Ecumenical Synod in 879, would have survived, and that there would not have been
any significant difference between the papacy and the other four Roman
(Orthodox) Patriarchates.

However, things did not turn out that way. The Papacy was alienated from the
(Orthodox) East by the Franks, so we now are faced with the history of that
alienation when we contemplate the reunion of divided Christians. By the eighth
century, we meet for the first time the beginnings of a split in Christianity.
In West European sources we find a separation between a "Greek East" and a
"Latin West." In Roman sources this same separation constitutes a schism between
Franks (a confederation of Germanic Teutonic peoples living on the lower banks
of the Rhine who by the sixth century AD conquered most of France, the low
countries and what is now Germany. ed) and Romans. One detects in both
terminologies an ethnic or racial basis for the schism which may be more
profound and important for descriptive analysis than the doctrinal claims of
either side.

The Roman Empire was conquered in three stages: by Germanic tribes (the
Franks) who became known as "Latin Christianity," by Muslim Arabs, and finally,
by Muslim Turks. In contrast to this, the ecclesiastical administration of the
Roman Empire disappeared in stages from West Europe, but has survived up to
modern times in the "East Roman Empire" the Orthodox Patriarchates of
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

The reason for this is that the Germanic - Frankish conquerors of the West
Romans (who became known as the "Roman Catholic Church.") used the Church to
suppress the Roman nation, whereas under Islam the East Roman nation, the
Orthodox Church, survived by means of the Orthodox Church. In each instance of
conquest, the bishops became the ethnarchs of the conquered Romans and
administered Roman law on behalf of the rulers. As long as the bishops were
Roman, the unity of the Roman Church was preserved, in spite of theological
conflicts.

Roman Revolutions and the Rise of Frankish Feudalism and
Doctrine

The Franks applied their policy of destroying the unity between the Romans
under their rule and the "East Romans," the Orthodox, under the rule of
Constantinople.They played one Roman party against the other, took neither side,
and finally condemned both the iconoclasts and the Seventh Ecumenical Synod
(786/7) at their own Council of Frankfurt in 794,

In the time of Pippin of Herestal (687-715) and Charles Martel (715-741),
many of the Franks who replaced Roman bishops were military leaders who,
accordingto Saint Boniface, "shed the blood of Christians like that of the
pagans."2

The Imperial CoronationCharlemagne

An unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of (the Roman) Pope Leo III
(795-816), the successor of Hadrian. Pope Leo was then accused of immoral
conduct. Charlemagne took a personal and active interest in the investigations
which caused Leo to be brought to him in Paderborn. Leo was sent back to Rome,
followed by Charlemagne, who continued the investigations. The Frankish king
required finally that Leo swear his innocence on the Bible, which he did on
December 23, (800). Two days later Leo crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the
Romans." Charlemagne had arranged to get the title "Emperor" in exchange for
Leo’s exoneration. Charlemagne caused the filioque (the new line in the Creed
that said that the Holy Spirit, "proceeds from the Father and the Son," instead
of the original which read, "proceeds from the Father, to be added to the
Frankish Creed, without consulting the pope. When the controversy over this
addition broke out in Jerusalem, Charlemagne convoked the Council of Aachen
(809) and decreed that this addition was a dogma necessary for salvation. With
this fait accomplit under his belt, he tried to pressure Pope Leo III into
accepting it.3

Pope Leo rejected the filioque not only as an addition to the Creed, but also
as doctrine, claiming that the Fathers left it out of the Creed neither out of
ignorance, nor out of negligence, nor out of oversight, but on purpose and by
divine inspiration. What Leo said to the Franks but in diplomatic terms, was
that the addition of the filioque to the Creed is a heresy.

The so-called split between East and West was, in reality, the importation
into Old Rome of the schism provoked by Charlemagne and carried there by the
Franks and Germans who took over the papacy.

The Bible and Tradition

A basic characteristic of the Frankish (Germanic-Latin) scholastic method,
mislead by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism had been its
naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated
about. By following Augustine, the Franks and the "Latin" Roman Catholic Church
substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had
found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a
Germanic fascination for metaphysics

In contrast to the Franks the Fathers of the Orthodox Church did not
understand theology as a theoretical or speculative science, but as a positive
science in all respects. This is why the patristic understanding of Biblical
inspiration is similar to the inspiration of writings in the field of the
positive sciences.

Scientific manuals are inspired by the observations of specialists. For
example, the astronomer records what he observes by means of the instruments at
his disposal. Because of his training in the use of his instruments, he is
inspired by the heavenly bodies, and sees things invisible to the naked eye. The
same is true of all the positive sciences. However, books about science can
never replace scientific observations. These writings are not the observations
themselves, but about these observations.

The same is true of the Orthodox understanding of the Bible and the writings
of the Fathers. Neither the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers are revelation
or the word of God. They are about revelation and about the word of God.

Revelation is the appearance of God to the prophets, apostles, and saints.
The Bible and the writings of the Fathers are about these appearances, but not
the appearances themselves. This is why it is the prophet, apostle, and saint
who sees God, and not those who simply read about their experiences of
glorification. It is obvious that neither a book about glorification nor one who
reads such a book can ever replace the prophet, apostle, or saint who has the
experience of glorification.

This is the heart of the Orthodox understanding of tradition and apostolic
succession which sets it apart from the "Latin" (in other words,
Frankish-Germanic) and Protestant traditions, both of which stem from the
theology of the Franks.

Following Augustine, the Franks identified revelation with the Bible and
believed that Christ gave to the Church the Holy Spirit as a guide to its
correct understanding. This would be similar to claiming that the books about
biology were revealed by microbes and cells without the biologists having seen
them with the microscope, and that these same microbes and cells inspire future
teachers to correctly understand these books without the use of the
microscope!

Historians have noted the naivite of the Frankish religious mind which was
shocked by the first claims for the primacy of observation over rational
analysis. Even Galileo’s telescopes could not shake this confidence. However,
several centuries before Galileo, the Franks had been shocked by the East Roman
(Orthodox) claim, hurled by Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), of the primacy of
experience and observation over "reason" in theology.

Instruments, Observation, Concepts, and
Language

The universe has turned out to be a much greater mystery to man than anyone
was ever able to imagine. Indications are strong that it will yet prove to be an
even greater mystery than man today can yet imagine. In the light of this, one
thinks humorously of the (Latin) bishops who could not grasp the reality, let
alone the magnitude, of what they saw through Galileo’s telescope. But the
magnitude of Frankish naivite becomes even greater when one realizes that these
same church leaders who could not understand the meaning of a simple observation
were claiming knowledge of God’s essence and nature.

The Latin tradition could not understand the significance of an instrument by
which the prophets, apostles, and saints had reached glorification.

Similar to today’s sciences, Orthodox theology also depends on an instrument
which is not identified with reason or the intellect. The Biblical name for this
is the heart. Christ says, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
God."4

The heart is not normally clean, i.e., it does not normally function
properly. Like the lens of a telescope or microscope, it must be polished so
that light may pass through and allow man to focus his spiritual vision on
things not visible to the naked eye.

In time, some Fathers gave the name nous (nou'~) to the faculty of the soul
which operates within the heart when restored to normal capacity, and reserved
the names logos (lovgo") and dianoia (diavnoia)for the intellect and reason, or
for what we today would call the brain. In order to avoid confusion, we use the
terms noetic faculty and noetic prayer to designate the activity of the nou'~ in
the heart called noerav eujchv.

The heart, and not the brain, is the area in which the theologian is formed.
Theology includes the intellect as all sciences do, but it is in the heart that
the intellect and all of man observes and experiences the rule of God. One of
the basic differences between science and Orthodox theology is that man has his
heart or noetic faculty by nature, whereas he himself has created his
instruments of scientific observation.

A second basic difference is the following: By means of his instruments, and
the energy radiated by and/or upon what he observes, the scientist sees things
which he can describe with words, even though at times inadequately. These words
are symbols of accumulated human experience, and understood by those with the
same or similar experience.

In contrast to this, the experience of glorification is to see God who has no
similarity whatsoever to anything created, not even to the intellect or to the
angels. God is literally unique and can in no way be described by comparison
with anything that any creature may be, know or imagine. No aspect about God can
be expressed in a concept or collection of concepts.

It is for this reason that in Orthodoxy positive statements about God are
counterbalanced by negative statements, not in order to purify the positive ones
of their imperfections, but in order to make clear that God is in no way similar
to the concepts conveyed by words, since God is above every name and concept
ascribed to Him. Although God created the universe, which continues to depend on
Him, God and the universe do not belong to one category of truth. Truths
concerning creation cannot apply to God, nor can the truth of God be applied to
creation.

Diagnosis and Therapy

Let us turn our attention to those aspects of differences between Roman and
Frankish theologies which have had a strong impact on the development of
differences in the doctrine of the Church. The basic differences may be listed
under diagnosis of spiritual ills and their therapy.

According to the Orthodox Church, the "East Romans," Glorification is the
vision of God in which the equality of all men and the absolute value of each
man is experienced. God loves all men equally and indiscriminately, regardless
of even their moral status. God loves with the same love, both the saint and the
devil. To teach otherwise, as Augustine and the Franks did, would be adequate
proof that they did not have the slightest idea of what glorification was.

According to the Orthodox, God multiplies and divides himself in His
uncreated energies undividedly among divided things, so that He is both present
by act and absent by nature to each individual creature and everywhere present
and absent at the same time. This is the fundamental mystery of the presence of
God to His creatures and shows that universals do not exist in God and are,
therefore, not part of the state of illumination as in the Augustinian (Frankish
Latin) tradition.

According to the Orthodox, God himself is both heaven and hell, reward and
punishment. All men have been created to see God unceasingly in His uncreated
glory. Whether God will be for each man heav-en or hell, reward or punishment,
depends on man’s re-sponse to God’s love and on man’s transformation from the
state of selfish and self-centered love, to Godlike love which does not seek its
own ends.

One can see how the Frankish understanding of heaven and hell poetically
described by Dante, John Milton, and James Joyce are so foreign to the Orthodox
tradition (but in keeping with the "Latin" tradition).

According to the Orthodox, since all men will see God, no religion can claim
for itself the power to send people either to heaven or to hell. This means that
true spiritual fathers prepare their spiritual charges so that vision of God’s
glory will be heaven, and not hell, reward, and not punishment. The primary
purpose of Orthodox Christianity then, is to prepare its members for an
experience which every human being will sooner or later have.

While the brain (according to the Orthodox) is the center of human adaptation
to the environment, the noetic faculty in the heart is the primary organ for
communion with God. The fall of man or the state of inherited sin is: a) the
failure of the noetic faculty to function properly, or to function at all; b)
its confusion with the functions of the brain and the body in general; and c)
its resulting enslavement to the environment.

Each individual experiences the fall of his own noetic faculty. One can see
why the Augustinian "Latin," Frankish) understanding of the fall of man as an
inherited guilt for the sin of Adam and Eve is not, and cannot, be accepted by
the Orthodox tradition.

There are two known memory systems built into living beings, 1) cell memory
which determines the function and development of the individual in relation to
itself, and 2) brain cell memory which determines the function of the individual
in relation to its environment. In addition to this, the patristic tradition is
aware of the existence in human beings of a now normally non-functioning or
sub-functioning memory in the heart, which when put into action via noetic
prayer, includes unceasing memory of God and, therefore, the normalization of
all other relations.

When the noetic faculty is not functioning properly, man is enslaved to fear
and anxiety and his relations to others are essentially utilitarian. Thus, the
root cause of all abnormal relations between God and man and among men is that
fallen man, i.e., man with a malfunctioning noetic faculty, uses God, his fellow
man, and nature for his own understanding of security and happiness. Man outside
of glorification imagines the existence of god or gods which are psychological
projections of his need for security and happiness.

That all men have this noetic faculty in the heart also means that all are in
direct relation to God at various levels, depending on how much the individual
personality resists enslavement to his physical and social surroundings and
allows himself to be directed by God. Every individual is sustained by the
uncreated glory of God and is the dwelling place of this uncreated creative and
sustaining light, which is called the rule, power, grace, etc. of God. Human
reaction to this direct relation or communion with God can range from the
hardening of the heart, i.e., the snuffing out of the spark of grace, to the
experience of glorification attained to by the prophets, apostles, and
saints.

This means that all men are equal in possession of the noetic faculty, but
not in quality or degree of function. It is important to note the clear
distinction between spirituality, which is rooted primarily in the heart’s
noetic faculty, and intellectuality, which is rooted in the brain. Thus:

1) A person with little intellectual attainments can rise to the highest
level of noetic perfection.

2) On the other hand, a man of the highest intellectual attainments can fall
to the lowest level of noetic imperfection.

3) One may also reach both the highest intellectual attainments and noetic
perfection.

Or 4) one may be of meager intellectual accomplishment with a hardening of
the heart.

Saint Basil the Great writes that "the in-dwelling of God is this—to have God
established within ourself by means of memory. We thus become temples of God,
when the continuity of memory is not interrupted by earthly cares, nor the
noetic faculty shaken by unexpected sufferings, but escaping from all things
this (noetic faculty) friend of God retires to God, driving out the passions
which tempt it to incontinence and abides in the practices which lead to
virtues."5

Saint Gregory the Theologian points out that "we ought to remember God even
more often than we draw out breath; and if it suffices to say this, we ought to
do nothing else…or, to use Moses’ words, whether a man lie asleep, or rise up,
or walk by the way, or whatever else he is doing, he should also have this
impressed in his memory for purity."6

Saint Gregory insists that to theologize "is permitted only to those who have
passed examinations and have reached theoria, and who have been previously
purified in soul and body, or at least are being purified."7

This state of theoria is two fold or has two stages: a) unceasing memory of
God and b) glorification, the latter being a gift which God gives to His friends
according to their needs and the needs of others. During this latter state of
glorification, unceasing noetic prayer is interrupted since it is replaced by a
vision of the glory of God in Christ. The normal functions of the body, such as
sleeping, eating, drinking, and digestion are suspended. In other respects, the
intellect and the body function normally. One does not lose consciousness, as
happens in the ecstatic mystical experiences of non-Orthodox Christian and pagan
religions. One is fully aware and conversant with his environment and those
around him, except that he sees everything and everyone saturated by the
uncreated glory of God, which is neither light nor darkness, and nowhere and
everywhere at the same time. This state may be of short, medium, or long
duration. In the case of Moses it lasted for forty days and forty nights. The
faces of those in this state of glorification give off an imposing radiance,
like that of the face of Moses, and after they die, their bodies become holy
relics. These relics give off a strange sweet smell, which at times can become
strong. In many cases, these relics remain intact in a good state of
preservation, without having been embalmed. They are completely stiff from head
to toe, light, dry, and with no signs of putrefaction.

There is no metaphysical criterion for distinguishing between good and bad
people. It is much more correct to distinguish between ill and more healthy
persons. The sick ones are those whose noetic faculty is either not functioning,
or functioning poorly, and the healthier ones are those whose noetic faculty is
being cleansed and illumined.

These levels are incorporated into the very structure of the four Gospels and
the liturgical life of the Church. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke
reflect the pre-baptismal catechism for cleansing the heart, and the Gospel of
John reflects the post-baptismal catechism which leads to theoria by way of the
stage of illumination. Christ himself is the spiritual Father who led the
apostles, as He had done with Moses and the prophets, to glorification by means
of purification and illumination.8

One can summarize these three stages of (Orthodox) perfection as a) that of
the slave who performs the commandments because of fear of seeing God as a
consuming fire, b) that of the hireling whose motive is the reward of seeing God
as glory, and c) that of the friends of God whose noetic faculty is completely
free, whose love has become selfless end because of this, are willing to be
damned for the salvation of their fellow man, as in the cases of Moses and
Paul.

THE FILIOQUE:

Historical Background

The Franks deliberately provoked doctrinal differences, between the East
Romans, (the Orthodox) and the West Romans, (the Roman Catholics) in order to
break the national and ecclesiastical unity of the original Roman nation.
Because of this deliberate policy, the filioque question took on irreparable
dimensions. However, the identity of the West Romans and of the East Romans as
one indivisible nation, faithful to the Roman Christian faith promulgated at the
Ecumenical Synods held in the Eastern part of the Empire, is completely lost to
the historians of Germanic background, since the East Romans are consistently
called "Greeks" and "Byzantines."

Thus, the historical myth has been created that the West Roman Fathers of the
Church, the Franks, Lombards, Burgundians, Normans, etc., are one continuous and
historically unbroken "Latin" Christendom, clearly distinguished and different
from a mythical "Greek" Christendom. The frame of reference accepted without
reservation by Western historians for so many centuries has been "the Greek East
and the Latin West."

A much more accurate understanding of history presenting the filioque
controversy in its true historical perspective is based on the Roman viewpoint
of church history, to be found in (both Latin and Greek) Roman sources, as well
as in Syriac, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Turkish sources. All these point to a
distinction between Frankish and Roman Christendom, and not between a mythical
"Latin" and "Greek" Christendom. Among the Romans, Latin and Greek are national
languages, not nations. The Fathers are neither "Latins" nor "Greeks" but
Romans.

Having this historical background in mind, one can then appreciate the
significance of certain historical and theological factors underlying the
so-called filioque controversy. This controversy was essentially a continuation
of the Germanic or Frankish effort to control not only the Roman nation, now
transformed into the serfs of Frankish feudalism, but also the rest of the Roman
nation and Empire.

The historical appearance of Frankish theology coincides with the beginnings
of the filioque controversy. Since the Roman Fathers of the Church took a strong
position on this issue, as they did on the question of Icons (also condemned
initially by the Franks), the Franks automatically terminated the patristic
period of theology with Saint John of Damascus in the East (after they accepted
the Seventh Ecumenical Synod) and Isidore of Seville in the West. After this,
the Roman Empire no longer can produce Fathers of the Church because the Romans
rejected the Frankish filioque. In doing so, the Romans withdrew themselves from
the central trunk of Christianity (as the Franks understood things) which now
becomes identical with Frankish Christianity, especially after the East Franks
expelled the Romans from the Papacy and took it over themselves.

From the Roman viewpoint, however, the Roman tradition of the Fathers was not
only not terminated in the eighth century, but continued a vigorous existence in
the East, as well as within Arab-occupied areas. Present research is now leading
to the conclusion that the Roman Patristic period extended right into the period
of Ottoman rule, after the fall of Constantinople New Rome. This means that the
Eighth Ecumenical Synod (879), under Photios, the so-called Palamite Synods of
the fourteenth century, and the Synods of the Roman Patriarchates during the
Ottoman period, are all a continuation and an integral part of the history of
Patristic theology. It is also a continuation of the Roman Christian tradition,
minus the Patriarchate of Old Rome, which, since 1009 after having been
captured, ceased to be Roman and became a Frankish institution.

Without ever mentioning the Franks, the Eighth Ecumenical Synod of 879
condemned those who either added or subtracted from the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and also those who had not yet accepted the
Seventh Ecumenical Synod.

It must first be emphasized that this is the first instance in history
wherein an Ecumenical Synod condemned heretics without naming them. In this case
the heretics are clearly the universally feared Franks. It is always claimed by
Protestant, Anglican, and Latin scholars that since the time of Hadrian I or Leo
III, through the period of John VIII, the Papacy opposed the filioque only as an
addition to the Creed, but never as doctrine or theological opinion. Thus, it is
claimed that John VIII accepted the Eighth Ecumenical Synod’s condemnation of
the addition to the Creed and not of the filioque as a teaching.

However, both Photios and John VIII’s letter to Photios testify to this
pope’s condemnation of the filioque as doctrine also. Yet the filioque could not
be publicly condemned as heresy by the Church of Old Rome. Why? Simply because
the Franks were militarily in control of papal Romania, and as illiterate
barbarians were capable of any kind of criminal act against the Roman clergy and
populace. The Franks were a dangerous presence in papal Romania and had to be
handled with great care and tact.

Yet the Romans in the West could never support the introduction of the
filioque into the Creed, not because they did not want to displease the
"Greeks," but because this would be heresy. The West Romans knew very well that
the term procession in the Creed was introduced as a parallel to generation, and
that both meant causal relation to the Father, and not energy or mission.

This interpretation of the filioque is the consistent position of the Roman
popes, and clearly so in the case of Leo III. The minutes of the conversation
held in 810 between the three apocrisari of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, kept
by the Frankish monk Smaragdus, bear out this consistency in papal policy.9 Leo
accepts the teaching of the Fathers, quoted by the Franks, that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son, as taught by Augustine and Ambrose.
However, the filioque must not be added to the Creed as was done by the Franks,
who got permission to sing the Creed from Leo but not to add to the Creed.

When one reads these minutes, remembering the Franks were a dangerous
presence in Rome capable of acting in a most cruel and barbarous manner if
provoked, then one comes to the clear realization that Pope Leo III is actually
telling the Franks in clear and diplomatic terms that the filioque in the Creed
is a heresy.

In the light of the above, we do not have the situation usually presented by
European, American, and Russian historians in which the filioque is an integral
part of so--called "Latin" Christendom with a "Greek" Christendom in opposition
on the pretext of its introduction into the Creed. (The addition to the Creed
was supposedly opposed by the popes not doctrinally, but only as addition in
order not to offend the "Greeks.") What we do have is a united West and East
Roman Christian nation in opposition to an upstart group of Germanic races who
began teaching the Romans before they really learned anything themselves. Of
course, German teachers could be very convincing on questions of dogma, only by
holding a knife to the throat. Otherwise, especially in the time of imposing the
filioque, the theologians of the new Germanic theology were better than their
noble peers, only because they could read and write and had, perhaps, memorized
Augustine.

The Theological Background

At the foundation of the filioque controversy between Franks and Romans lie
essential differences in theological method, theological subject matter,
spirituality, and, therefore, also in the understanding of the very nature of
doctrine and of the development of the language or of terms in which doctrine is
expressed.

When reading through Smaragdus’ minutes of the meeting between Charlemagne’s
emissaries and Pope Leo III, one is struck not only by the fact that the Franks
had so audaciously added the filioque to the Creed and made it into a dogma, but
also by the haughty manner in which they so authoritatively announced that the
filioque was necessary for salvation, and that it was an improvement of an
already good, but not complete, doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit. This was in
answer to Leo’s strong hint at Frankish audacity. Leo, in turn, warned that when
one attempts to improve what is good he should first be sure that in trying to
improve he is not corrupting. He emphasizes that he cannot put himself in a
position higher than the Fathers of the Synods, who did not omit the filioque
out of oversight or ignorance, but by divine inspiration.

The question arises, "Where in the world did the newly born Frankish
theological tradition get the idea that the filioque is an improvement of the
Creed, and that it was omitted from creedal expression because of oversight or
ignorance on the part of the Fathers of the Synod?" Since Augustine is the only
representative of Roman theology that the Franks were more or less fully
acquainted with, one must turn to the Bishop of Hippo for a possible answer. I
think I have found the answer in Saint Augustine’s lecture delivered to the
assembly of African bishops in 393. Augustine had been asked to deliver a
lecture on the Creed, which he did. Later he reworked the lecture and published
it. I do not see why the Creed expounded is not that of Nicaea-Constantinople,
since the outline of Augustine’s discourse and the Creed are the same. Twelve
years had passed since its acceptance by the Second Ecumenical Synod and, if
ever, this was the opportune time for assembled bishops to learn of the new,
official, imperially approved creed. The bishops certainly knew their own local
Creed and did not require lessons on that. In any case, Augustine makes three
basic blunders in this discourse and died many years later without ever
realizing his mistakes, which were to lead the Franks and the whole of their
Germanic Latin Christendom into a repetition of those same mistakes.

In his De Fide et Symbolo,10 Augustine makes an unbelievable naive and
inaccurate statement: "With respect to the Holy Spirit, however, there has not
been, on the part of learned and distinguished investigators of the Scriptures,
a fuller careful enough discussion of the subject to make it possible for us to
obtain an intelligent conception of what also constitutes His special
individuality (proprium)."

Everyone at the Second Ecumenical Synod knew well that this question was
settled once and for all by the use in the Creed of the word procession as
meaning the manner of existence of the Holy Spirit from the Father which
constitutes His special individuality. Thus, the Father is unbegotten, i.e.
derives His existence from no one. The Son is from the Father by generation. The
Holy Spirit is from the Father, not by generation, but by procession. The Father
is cause, the Son and the Spirit are caused. The difference between the ones
caused is the one is caused by generation, and the other by procession, and not
by generation.

In any case, Augustine spent many years trying to solve this non-existent
problem concerning the individuality of the Holy Spirit and, because of another
set of mistakes in his understanding of revelation and theological method, came
up with the filioque.

It is no wonder that the Franks, believing that Augustine had solved a
theological problem which the other Roman Fathers had supposedly failed to
grapple with and solve came to the conclusion that they uncovered a theologian
far superior to all other Fathers. In him the Franks had a theologian who
improved upon the teaching of the Second Ecumenical Synod.

A second set of blunders made by Augustine in this same discourse is that he
identified the Holy Spirit with the divinity "which the Greeks designate
qeovth~" and explained that this is the "love between the Father and the Son."11

The third and most disturbing blunder in Augustine’s approach to the question
before us is that his theological method is not only pure speculation on what
one accepts by faith (for the purpose of intellectually understanding as much as
one’s reason allows by either illumination or ecstatic intuition), but is a
speculation which is transferred from the individual speculating believer to a
speculating church, which, like an individual, understands the dogmas better
with the passage of time.

Thus, the Church awaits a discussion about the Holy Spirit "Full enough or
careful enough to make it possible for us to obtain an intelligent conception of
what also constitutes His special individuality (proprium)."

The most amazing thing is the fact that Augustine begins with seeking out the
individual properties of the Holy Spirit and immediately reduces Him to what is
common to the Father and Son. However, in his later additions to his De
Trinitate, he insists that the Holy Spirit is an individual substance of the
Holy Trinity completely equal to the other two substances and possessing the
same essence as we saw.

In any case, the Augustinian idea that the Church herself goes through a
process of attaining a deeper and better understanding of her dogmas or
teachings was made the very basis of the Frankish propaganda that the filioque
is a deeper and better understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore,
adding it to the Creed is an improvement upon the faith of the Romans who had
allowed themselves to become lazy and slothful on such an important matter.
This, of course, raises the whole question concerning the relationship between
revelation and verbal and iconic or symbolic expressions of revelation.

For Augustine, there is no distinction between revelation and conceptual
intuition of revelation. Whether revelation is given directly to human reason,
or to human reason by means of creatures, or created symbols, it is always the
human intellect itself which is being illumined or given vision to. The vision
of God itself is an intellectual experience, even though above the powers of
reason without appropriate grace.

In contrast to this Augustinian approach to language and concepts concerning
God, we have the Patristic position expressed by Saint Gregory the Theologian
against the Eunomians. Plato had claimed that it is difficuIt to conceive of God
but, to define Him in words is an impossibility. Saint Gregory disagrees with
this and emphasizes that "it is impossible to express Him, and yet, more
impossible to conceive Him. For that which may be conceived may perhaps be made
clear by language, if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly..."12

The most important element in Patristic epistemology is that the partial
knowability of the divine actions or energies, and the absolute and radical
unknowability and incommunicability of the divine essence is not a result of
philosophical or theological speculation, as it is in Paul of Samosata,
Arianism, and Nestorianism, but of the personal experience of revelation or
participation in the uncreated glory of God by means of vision or theoria. Saint
Gregory defines a theologian as one who has reached this theoria by means of
purification and illumination, and not by means of dialectical speculation.
Thus, the authority for Christian truth is not the written words of the Bible,
which cannot in themselves either express God or convey an adequate concept
concerning God, but rather the individual apostle, prophet, or saint who is
glorified in God.

Because the Franks, following Augustine, neither understood the Patristic
position on this subject, nor were they willing from the heights of their
majestic feudal nobility to listen to "Greeks" explain these distinctions, they
went about raiding the Patristic texts. They took passages out of context in
order to prove that for all the Fathers, as supposedly in the case of Augustine,
the fact that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit means that the Holy
Spirit derives His existence from the Father and Son.

The Fathers always claimed that generation and procession are what
distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit. Since the Son is the only begotten Son
of God, procession is different from generation. Otherwise, we would have two
Sons, in which case there is no only begotten Son. For the Fathers this was both
a biblical fact and a mystery to be treated with due respect. To ask what
generation and procession are is as ridiculous as asking what the divine essence
is. Only energies of God may be known, and then only in so far as the creature
can receive.

In contrast to this, Augustine set out to explain what generation is. He
identified generation with what the other Roman Fathers called actions or
energies of God which are common to the Holy Trinity. Thus, procession ended up
being these same energies. The difference between the Son and the Spirit was
that the Son is from one and the Holy Spirit from two.

When he began his De Trinitate,13 Augustine promised that he would explain
why the Son and the Holy Spirit are not brothers. After completing his twelfth
book, his friends stole and published this work in an unfinished and uncorrected
form. In Book 15.45, Augustine admits that he cannot explain why the Holy Spirit
is not a Son of the Father and brother of the Logos, and proposes that we will
learn this in the next life.

In his Rectractationun, Augustine explains how he intended to exiain what had
happened in another writing and not publish his De Trinitate himself. However,
his friends prevailed upon him, and he simply corrected the books as much as he
could and finished the work with which he was not really satisfied.

What is most remarkable is that the spiritual and cultural descendants of the
Franks are still claiming that Augustine is the authority par excellence on the
Patristic doctrine of the Holy Trinity!

Whereas no Greek-speaking Roman Father ever used the expression that the Holy
Spirit proceeds (ejkporeuvetai) from the Father and Son, both Ambrose and
Augustine use this expression. Since Ambrose was so dependent on such
Greek-speaking experts as Basil the Great and Didymos the Blind, particularly
his work on the Holy Spirit, one would expect that he would follow Eastern
usage.

It seems, however, that at the time of the death of Ambrose, before the
Second Ecumenical Synod, the term procession had been adopted by Didymos as the
hypostatic individuality of the Holy Spirit. It had not been used by Saint Basil
(only in his letter 38 he seems to be using procession as Gregory the
Theologian) or by Saint Gregory of Nyssa before the Second Ecumenical Synod. Of
the Cappadocian Fathers, only Saint Gregory the Theologian uses very clearly in
his Theological Orations what became the final formulation of the Church on the
matter at the Second Ecumenical Synod.

Evidently, because Augustine transformed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity
into a speculative exercise of philosophical acumen, the simple, schematic and
biblical nature of the doctrine in the East Roman (Orthodox) tradition had been
lost sight of by those stemming from the scholastic tradition.

Thus, the history of the doctrine of the Trinity has been reduced to
searching out the development of such concepts and terminology as three persons
or hypostases, one essence, homoousios, personal or hypostatic properties, one
divinity, etc.

The summary of the Patristic theological method is perhaps sufficient to
indicate the nonspeculative method by which the Fathers theologize and interpret
the Bible. The method is simple and-the result is schematic. Stated simply and
arithmetically, the whole doctrine of the Trinity may be broken down into two
simple statements as far as the filioque is concerned. (1) What is common in the
Holy Trinity is common to and identical in all three persons or hypostases. (2)
What is hypostatic, or hypostatic property, or manner of existence is
individual, and belongs only to one person or hypostasis of the Holy Trinity.
Thus, we have tav koinav and tav ajkoinwvnhta, what is common and what is
incommunically individual.

Having this in mind, one realizes why the West and East Romans did not take
the Frankish filioque very seriously as a theological position, especially as
one which was supposed to improve upon the Creed of the Second Ecumenical
Synod.

However, the Romans had to take the Franks themselves seriously, because they
backed up their fantastic theological claims with an unbelievable
self-confidence and with a sharp sword. What they lacked in historical insight,
they made up with "nobility" of descent, and a strong will to back up their
arguments with muscle and steel.

In any case, it may be useful in terminating this section to emphasize the
simplicity of the Roman position and the humor with which the filioque was
confronted. We may recapture this Roman humor about the Latin filioque with two
syllogistic jokes from the Great Photios which may explain some of the fury of
Frankish reaction against him.

"Everything, therefore, which is seen and spoken of in the all-holy and
consubstantial and coessential Trinity, is either common to all, or belongs to
one only of the three: but the projection (probolhv) of the Spirit, is neither
common, nor, as they say, does it belong to any one of them alone (may
propitiation be upon us, and the blasphemy turned upon their heads). Therefore,
the projection of the Spirit is not at all in the lifegiving and all-perfect
Trinity."14

In other words, the Holy Spirit must then derive His existence outside of the
Holy Trinity since everything in the Trinity is common to all or belongs to one
only.

"For otherwise, if all things common to the Father and the Son, are in any
case common to the Spirit, …and the procession from them is common to the Father
and the Son, the Spirit therefore will then proceed from himself: and He will be
principle (ajrchv) of himself, and both cause and caused: a thing which even the
myths of the Greeks never fabricated."15

Keeping in mind the fact that the Fathers always began their thoughts about
the Holy Trinity from their personal experience of the Angel of the Lord and
Great Counselor made man and Christ, one only then understands the problematic
underlying the Arian/Eunomian crisis, i.e., whether this concrete person derives
His existence from the essence or hypostasis of the Father or from non-being by
the will of the Father. Had the tradition understood the method of theologizing
about God as Augustine did, there would never have been an Arian or Eunomian
heresy. Those who reach glorification (theosis) know by this experience that
whatever has its existence from non-being by the will of God is a creature, and
whoever and whatever is not from non-being, but from the Father is uncreated.
Between the created and the uncreated, there is no similarity whatsoever.***
Before the Cappadocian Fathers gave their weight to the distinction between the
three divine hypostases (uJpostavsei~) and the one divine essence, many Orthodox
Church leaders avoided speaking either about one essence or one hypostasis since
this smacked of Sabellian and Samosatene Monarchianism. Many preferred to speak
about the Son as deriving His existence from the Father’s essence and as being
like the Father in essence (oJmoiouvsio~) Saint Athanasios explains that this is
exactly what is meant by (oJmoouvsio~)—coessential.16 It is clear that the
Orthodox were not searching for a common faith but rather for common terminology
and common concepts to express their common experience in the Body of
Christ.

Equally important is the fact that the Cappadocians lent their weight to the
distinction between the Father as cause (ai[tio~) and the Son and the Holy
Spirit as caused (aijtiatav). Coupled with the manners of existence (trovpoi
uJpavrxew~) of generation and procession, these terms mean that the Father
causes the existence of the Son by generation and of the Holy Spirit by
procession and not by generation. Of course, the Father being from no one (ejx
oujdenov~) derives His existence neither from himself nor from another.
Actually, Saint Basil pokes fun at Eunomios for being the first to say such an
obvious thing and thereby manifest his frivolousness and wordiness. Furthermore,
neither the essence nor the natural energy of the Father have a cause or manner
of existence. The Father possesses them by His very nature and communicates them
to the Son in order that they possess them by nature likewise. Thus, the manner
by which the uncaused Father exists, and by which the Son and the Holy Spirit
receive their existence from the Father, are not to be confused with the
Father’s communicating His essence and energy to the Son and the Holy Spirit. It
would, indeed, be strange to speak about the Father as causing the existence of
His own essence and energy along with the hypostases of the Son and the Holy
Spirit.

It also must be emphasized that for the Fathers who composed the creeds of
Nicaea and Constantinople neither generation nor procession mean energy or
action. This was the position of the heretics condemned. The Arians claimed that
the Son is the product of the will of God. The Eunomians supported a more
original but bizarre position that the uncreated energy of the Father is
identical with His essence, that the Son is the product of a simple created
energy of God, that the Holy Spirit is the product of a single energy of the
Son, and that each created species is the product of a special energy of the
Holy Spirit, there being as many created energies as there are species.
Otherwise, if the Holy Spirit has only one created energy, then there would be
only one species of things in creation. It is in the light of these heresies
also that one must appreciate that generation and procession in the Creed in no
way mean energy or action.

However, when the Franks began raiding the Fathers for arguments to support
their addition to the Creed, they picked up the categories of manner of
existence, cause and caused, and identified these with Augustine’s generation
and procession, thus transforming the old Western Orthodox filioque into their
heretical one. This confusion is nowhere so clear than during the debates at the
Council of Florence where the Franks used the terms cause and caused as
identical with their generation and procession, and supported their claim that
the Father and the Son are one cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus,
they became completely confused over Maximos who explains that for the West of
his time, the Son is not the cause of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so that
in this sense the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father. That Anastasios
the Librarian repeats this is ample evidence of the confusion of both the Franks
and their spiritual and theological descendants.*** For the Fathers, no name or
concept gives any understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Saint
Gregory the Theologian, e.g., is clear on this as we saw. He ridicules his
opponents with a characteristic taunt: "Do tell me what is the unbegotteness of
the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the generation of the
Son and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken
for prying into the mystery of God’’17 Names and concepts about God give to
those who reach theoria understanding not of the mystery, but of the dogma and
its purpose. In the experience of glorification, knowledge about God, along with
prayer, prophecy and faith are abolished. Only love remains (1 Cor. 13, 8-13;
14,1). The mystery remains, and will always remain, even when one sees God in
Christ face to face and is known by God as Paul was (I Cor. 13.12).

The Significance of the Filioque Question

Smaragdus records how the emissaries of Charlemagne complained that Pope Leo
III was making an issue of only four syllables. Of course, four syllables are
not many. Nevertheless, their implications are such that Latin or Frankish
Christendom embarked on a history of theology and ecclesiastical practice which
may have been quite different had the Franks paid attention to the "Greeks."

I will indicate some of the implications of the presuppositions of the
filioque issue which present problems today.

1 ) Even a superficial study of today’s histories of dogma and biblical
scholarship reveals the peculiar fact that Protestant, Anglican, Papal, and some
Orthodox theologians accept the First and Second Ecumenical Synods only
formally. This is so because there is at least an identity of teaching between
Orthodox and Arians, which does not exist between Orthodox and Latins, about the
real appearances of the Logos to the Old Testament prophets and the identity of
this Logos with the Logos made flesh in the New Testament. This, as we saw, was
the agreed foundation of debate for the determination of whether the Logos seen
by the prophets is created or uncreated. This identification of the Logos in the
Old Testament is the very basis of the teachings of all the Roman Ecumenical
Synods.

We emphasize that the East Roman (Orthodox) Fathers never abandoned this
reading of the Old Testament theophanies. This is the teaching of all the West
Roman Fathers, with the single exception of Augustine, who, confused as usual
over what the Fathers teach, rejects as blasphemous the idea that the prophets
could have seen the Logos with their bodily eyes and, indeed, in fire, darkness,
cloud, etc.

The Arians and Eunomians had used, as the Gnostics before them, the
visibility of the Logos to the prophets to prove that He was a lower being than
God and a creature. Augustine agrees with the Arians and Eunomians that the
prophets saw a created Angel, created fire, cloud, light, darkness, etc., but he
argues against them that none of these was the Logos himself, but symbols by
means of which God or the whole Trinity is seen and heard.

Augustine had no patience with the teaching that the Angel of the Lord, the
fire, the glory, the cloud, and the Pentecostal tongues of fire, were verbal
symbols of the uncreated realities immediately communicated with by the prophets
and apostles, since for him this would mean that all this language pointed to a
vision of the divine substance. For the bishop of Hippo this vision is identical
to the whole of what is uncreated, and could be seen only by a Neoplatonic type
ecstasy of the soul, out of the body within the sphere of timeless and
motionless eternity transcending all discursive reasoning. Since this is not
what he found in the Bible, the visions therein described are not verbal symbols
of real visions of God, but of creatures symbolizing eternal realities. The
created verbal symbols of the Bible became created objective symbols. In other
words, words which symbolized uncreated energies like fire, etc., became
objectively real created fires, clouds, tongues, etc.

2) This failure of Augustine to distinguish between the divine essence and
its natural energies (of which some are communicated to the friends of God), led
to a very peculiar reading of the Bible, wherein creatures or symbols come into
existence in order to convey a divine message, and then pass out of existence.
Thus, the Bible becomes full of unbelievable miracles and a text dictated by
God.

3) Besides this, the biblical concept of heaven and hell also becomes
distorted, since the eternal fires of hell and the outer darkness become
creatures also whereas, they are the uncreated glory of God as seen by those who
refuse to love. Thus, one ends up with the three-story universe problem, with
God in a place, etc., necessitating a demythologizing of the Bible in order to
salvage whatever one can of a quaint Christian tradition for modern man.
However, it is not the Bible itself which needs demythologizing, but the
Augustinian Franco-Latin tradition and the caricature which it passed off in the
West as "Greek" Patristic theology.

4) By not taking the above-mentioned foundations of Roman Patristic theology
of the Ecumenical Synods seriously as the key to interpreting the Bible, modern
biblical scholars have applied presuppositions latent in Augustine with such
methodical consistency that they have destroyed the unity and identity of the
Old and New Testaments, and have allowed themselves to be swayed by Judaic
interpretations of the Old Testament rejected by Christ himself. Thus, instead
of dealing with the concrete person of the Angel of God, Lord of Glory, Angel of
Great Council, Wisdom of God and identifying Him with the Logos made flesh and
Christ, and accepting this as the doctrine of the Trinity, most, if not all,
Western scholars have ended up identifying Christ only with Old Testament
Messiahship, and equating the doctrine of the Trinity with the development of
extra Biblical Trinitarian terminology within what is really not a Patristic
framework, but an Augustinian one. Thus, the so-called "Greek" Fathers are still
read in the light of Augustine, with the Russians after Peter Mogila joining
in.

5) Another most devastating result of the Augustinian presuppositions of the
filioque is the destruction of the prophetic and apostolic understanding of
grace and its replacement with the whole system of created graces distributed in
Latin Christendom by the hocus pocus of the clergy.

For the Bible and the Fathers, grace is the uncreated glory and rule
(basileiva) of God seen by the prophets, apostles, and saints and participated
in by the faithful followers of the prophets and the apostles. The source of
this glory and rule is the Father who, in begetting the Logos, and projecting
the Spirit, communicates this glory and rule so that the Son and the Spirit are
also by nature one source of grace with the Father. This uncreated grace and
rule (basileiva) is participated in by the faithful according to their
preparedness for reception, and is seen by the friends of God who have become
gods by grace.

Because the Frankish filioque presupposes the identity of uncreated divine
essence and energy, and because participation in the divine essence is
impossible, the Latin tradition was led automatically into accepting
communicated grace as created, leading to its objectification and magical
priestly manipulation.

On the other hand, the reduction by Augustine of this revealed glory and rule
(basileiva) to the status of a creature has misled modern biblical scholars into
the endless discussions concerning the coming of the "Kingdom" (basileiva should
rather be rule) without realizing its identity with the uncreated glory and
grace of God.19

In the patristic tradition, all dogma or truth is experienced in
glorification. The final form of glorification is that of Pentecost, in which
the apostles were led by the Spirit into all the truth, as promised by Christ at
the Last Supper. Since Pentecost, every incident of the glorification of a
saint, (in other words, of a saint having a vision of God’s uncreated glory in
Christ as its source), is an extension of Pentecost at various levels of
intensity.

This experience includes all of man, but at the same time transcends all of
man, including man’s intellect. Thus, the experience remains a mystery to the
intellect, and cannot be conveyed intellectually to another. Thus, language can
point to, but cannot convey, this experience. The spiritual father can guide a
person to, but cannot produce, the experience which is a gift of the Holy
Spirit.

When, therefore, the Fathers add terms to the biblical language concerning
God and His relation to the world like hypostasis, ousia, physis, homoousios,
etc., they are not doing this because they are improving current understanding
as over against a former age. Pentecost cannot be improved upon. All they are
doing is defending the Pentecostal experience which transcends words, in the
language of their time, because a particular heresy leads away from, and not to,
this experience, which means spiritual death to those led astray.

For the Fathers, authority is not only the Bible, but the Bible plus those
glorified or divinized as the prophets and apostles. The Bible is not in itself
either inspired or infallible. It becomes inspired and infallible within the
communion of saints because they have the experience of divine glory described
in the Bible.

The presuppositions of the Frankish ("Latin") filioque are not founded on
this experience of glory. Anyone can claim to speak with authority and
understanding. However, we Orthodox follow the Fathers and accept only those as
authority who, like the apostles, have reached a degree of Pentecostal
glorification.

Within this frame of reference, there can be no institutionalized or
guaranteed form of infallibility, outside of the tradition of spirituality which
leads to theoria, mentioned above, by St. Gregory the Theologian.

What is true of the Bible is true of the Synods, which, like the Bible,
express in symbols that which transcends symbols and is known by means of those
who have reached theoria. It is for this reason that the Synods appeal to the
authority, not only of the Fathers in the Bible, but also to the Fathers of all
ages, since the Fathers of all ages participate in the same truth which is God’s
glory in Christ.

For this reason, Pope Leo III told the Franks in no uncertain terms that the
Fathers left the filioque out of the Creed neither because of ignorance nor by
omission, but by divine inspiration. However the implications of the Frankish
filioque were not accepted by all Roman Christians in the Western Roman
provinces conquered by Franco-Latin Christendom and its scholastic theology.
Remnants of Roman biblical orthodoxy and piety have survived and all parts may
one day be reassembled, as the full implications of the Patristic tradition make
themselves known, and spirituality, as the basis of doctrine, becomes the center
of our studies.

Notes

1. The European and Middle Eastern parts of the Roman Empire were carved out
of areas which, among other linguistic elements, contained two bands, the Celtic
and the Greek, which ran parallel to each other from the Atlantic to the Middle
East. The Celtic band was north of the Greek band, except in Asia Minor, where
Galatia had the Greek band to the east, the north, and the south. Northern Italy
itself was part of the Celtic band and Southern Italy a part of the Greek band
(here called Magna Graecia) which in the West covered Southern Spain, Gaul, and
their Mediterranean islands. Due consideration should be given to the fact that
both the Celtic and Greek bands were east and west of Roman Italy. The Romans
first took over the Greek and Celtic parts of Italy and then the Greek and
Celtic speaking peoples of the two bands. The Celtic band was almost completely
Latinized, whereas the Greek band, not only remained intact, but was even
expanded by the Roman policy of completing the Hellenization of the Eastern
provinces initiated by the Macedonians. The reason why the Celtic band, but not
the Greek band, was Latinized was that the Romans were themselves bilingual in
fact and in sentiment, since in the time of their explosive expansion they spoke
both Latin and Greek, with a strong preference for the latter. Thus, one is
obliged to speak of both the Western and Eastern parts of European Romania in
terms of a Latin North and a Greek South, but certainly not of a Latin West and
a Greek East, which is a Frankish myth, fabricated for the propagandistic
reasons described in Lecture I, which survives in text books until today.
Indeed, the Galatians of Asia Minor were in the fourth century still speaking
the same dialect as the Treveri of the province of Belgica in the Roman diocese
of Gaul. (Albert Grenier, Les Gaulois [Paris, 1970], p. 115.) That the Latin
West/Greek East division of Europe is a Frankish myth is still witnessed to
today by some 25 million Romans in the Balkans, who speak Romance dialects, and
by the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Balkans and the Middle East, who call
themselves Romans. It should be noted that it is very possible that the
Galatians of Asia Minor still spoke the same language as the ancestors of the
Waloons in the area of the Ardennes when the legate of Pope John XV, Abbot Leo,
was at Mouzon pronouncing the condemnation of Gerbert d’Aurillac in 995

2. Migne, PL 89:744.

3. For a review of the historical and doctrinal aspects of this question, see
J. S. Romanides, The Filioque, Anglican Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions,
St. Albans 1975—Moscow 1976 (Athens, 1978).

4. Matthew 5.8.

5. Epistle 2.

6. Theological Oration 1.5.

7. Ibid. 1.3.

8. On the relations between the Johanine and Synoptic gospel traditions see
my study, "Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel," The Greek Orthodox Theological
Review, 4 (1958-59), pp. 115-39.